New Bedford residents remember grandparents lost in Cocoanut Grove fire

On the 70th anniversary of the fire, two of Thomas and Catherine O'Neil's grandchildren will announce the establishment of a foundation to raise and distribute funds for the benefit of pediatric burn victims and their families.

Comment

By CURT BROWN

southcoasttoday.com

By CURT BROWN

Posted Nov. 27, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Nov 27, 2012 at 8:20 AM

By CURT BROWN

Posted Nov. 27, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Nov 27, 2012 at 8:20 AM

» Social News

NEW BEDFORD — Seventy years ago, Thomas O'Neil, his wife, Catherine, and his sister and her date, Isabelle O'Neil and Dr. Bill O'Connor, enjoyed an evening of dinner and dancing at Boston's hottest nightclub — the Cocoanut Grove.

They had paid their bill, gotten their coats and were about to leave when Isabelle decided to visit the ladies room. It turned out to be a fateful moment for all of them.

O'Neil, 48, an inspector with the Registry of Motor Vehicles, and Catherine, 43, a housewife, of New Bedford, and Isabelle, who was about 35 and worked at B.M.C. Durfee High School in Fall River, were among the 492 people killed in the historic fire on Nov. 28, 1942. O'Connor, who was also about 35 and was a general practitioner in New Bedford, suffered burns to his hands but survived.

On the 70th anniversary of the fire, two of Thomas and Catherine's grandchildren will hold an "awareness raiser" and announce the establishment of the Thomas H. and Catherine D. O'Neil Charitable Foundation Inc. to raise and distribute funds for the benefit of pediatric burn victims and their families.

Christopher and Mark O'Neil, vice president and president, respectively, of the Tomlinson & O'Neil Insurance Agency of New Bedford, will announce a sizeable donation to the foundation at a private reception at the Country Club of New Bedford from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday.

The event will also call attention to a portal — www.cocoanutgrove.org — that contains witness statements about the fire recently released by the Boston Police Department. It will also recognize the work of the National Fire Protection Association, based in Quincy, in collecting information from numerous sources about the fire.

The National Fire Protection Association is working with partners like the Boston Public Library to collect the materials that are digitized and posted on the website.

"I wanted to use the anniversary as a stepping-off for the announcement of the foundation and the work that is presently being done out of Boston," Chris O'Neil said.

The brothers said the website is an invaluable tool for family members of victims and survivors, historians and researchers.

It was only from reading O'Connor's three-page statement that they learned some of the circumstances behind their paternal grandparents and their grand-aunt's deaths, they said.

"There are people all over the world looking for information because (the fire) affected them in some way," Chris O'Neil said.

"There are so many people who don't know what happened to their loved ones," Mark O'Neil said.

They said they have long been curious about the fire, but their father, the late Andrew O'Neil, one of Thomas and Catherine's three children, would not discuss it with them.

Sue Marsh, head librarian for the National Fire Protection Association, said the Boston police documents were only released a couple of weeks ago. She said the National Fire Protection Association is also hopeful of obtaining an additional set of witness statements from the Boston Fire Department.

"We're trying to pull together family members' stories that if we don't pull together will be lost," she said.